Take a Picture of Your Chromebook Screen!

There´s a great set of keystrokes to use to take a picture of your Chromebook screen, or a part of your Chromebook screen!

For a complete screen: press Ctrl key and the Multi-screen key (located on the top row of the Chromebook keyboard.)

For a part of the screen: press Ctl key, Shift key, and the Multi-screen key.  Your cursor will become a crosshair, so you can click and drag across the part of the screen you want to grab.

After you let go of the keys, the system will copy it to your clipboard, so you can paste it into the document, slide, web site, etc.  

We used this when creating avatars on Avatarmaker.com.  The images wouldn´t download, so the students just did a screen grab of their avatar, and pasted it in their book talk slide stack.

Tech Troubleshooting- Chromebook resolution is too large

I´ve been noticing lately that some of our Chromebooks have a screen resolution that is quite large.  That means that students may not see all that there is to see on a site, and some of the content may ¨fall off the edges" of the Chromebook.  An example is below- image 1 is a larger screen resolution than image 2.  Watch this very short video to fix the problem.


Image 1:



Image 2:

Exciting New Experiences at my New School!

I'm excited to be working with a great staff at Collins Intermediate school.  We have a bit over 750 students enrolled, and that is a lot of 5th and 6th graders!  Although the school is large, we have a family atmosphere, and we enjoy working together to help our students succeed!

One emphasis on professional development is a structure called Instructional Rounds.  The staff began exploring this way of continuous improvement last year, and this year we made a schedule using a Google Sheet so that teachers can sign up to visit another teacher's classroom.  Teachers can visit someone who is teaching the same content, or they can switch it up, knowing that good teaching strategies and management can be used no matter what you are teaching! 

After the teacher(s) visit a host classroom with our Instructional Coach, Pat Mills, they spend a few minutes debriefing.  Wow, you can really use what you saw quickly in your own classroom!  Or, you can get affirmation about strategies you are already using, which is just as helpful!  We have also enjoyed starting conversations about instruction happening in the host classroom.

I am attending this year's Instructional Coaching Institute lead by Jim Knight. I am learning a lot about myself and strategies to use with the teachers I'm working with at Collins.

Here are a few pictures to give an idea- it's so simple to implement, and yet has really given us insight, support, and ideas for our own students and classrooms!

Our Last Day: Makey Makey Time and Blog Addresses

Today is our last day of Digic@mp!  We have been working on using Makey Makey devices to play music and use as a game control.  We used bananas, carrots, and other stuff to play music! We used playdough to create large buttons to tap on to play a PacMan game.  We made sure we posted videos and pictures of what we did, and Mr. McAdams, a reporter from the EastTex Advocate, came to take pictures and interview students!

Dancing Robots

On Wednesday we experimented with using Blockly, a coding app, to code Dash robots to play the xylophone.  Then we created a dance routine with our Dash robot and performed.  We also built our presentations showing our field trip to the Health Museum, published them to the web, and then used html code to put them on our blogs!

Trip to Houston

Our group at the Houston Health Museum

Thanks for the help!

Digic@mp 2018 Begins Today!

I just have a few more days in Coldspring-Oakhurst CISD, so I want to make sure the 5th annual Digic@mp is in the memory book/blog.  It's a tech camp for students finishing 3rd-5th grade.  Our theme this week is Music and Sound.  So...today's first job was to form groups and create musical instruments! I took some pictures and then shared with students from my Google Drive.  The students created blogs, and their first post included pictures from creating the instruments.  I love giving students the tools to create!  It got really quiet at times in the hallway because they were working so hard at their tasks.  Check out a few below!

Matchbox Guitar!

Following directions to make a Matchbox Guitar can be difficult!

Finishing up painting a Shoebox Banjo! 

Dinasaur Call

We love painting and cutting and gluing!

Shoebox Banjo!

How to Move the Contents of Your Google Drive to Another Gmail Account

It's that time of the year when teachers and staff begin to make changes for the next school year.  It's especially important in these digital times that you prepare and pack up your digital content as well as all the books, supplies,gadgets, decorations, and those precious notes and pictures.
If you are leaving your school district, follow these three steps to take your Google Drive files with you to your next district.

Follow these steps to make the transition as smooth as possible!

Any files in your Google Drive that you created, you own.  That also means that if a Google doc (sheet, preso, etc.) is owned by you, and you want someone in your school or district to be able to keep using that doc, you need to transfer ownership.  You can also transfer ownership of folders.
Watch this video to see how to complete this step.

If you want to keep any files that someone shared with you, you should make sure you have chosen the icon "Add to My Drive" near the top of the doc.  You can only move Google Docs that are actually in your Google Drive, not just shared with you.
Watch this video to see how to complete this step.

When you are ready (Step 1 and 2: You've cleaned out the docs you don't want, you've transferred ownership of docs to other people, and you've added docs to your Drive that people have shared with you.)

 Follow the directions located here, in the section called "Copy and Transfer Your Files."  If you don't have a Gmail account, you need to make one so you can complete the transfer.  If you are going to work at a district that has G-Suite for Education, and you already have a district email, you can transfer from your current district Google Drive to the Google Drive associated with your new district.
Click here for step by step instructions for completing this task.

Instructional Tech Presentation to COCISD Board at Meeting

CIS Coding and Robotics Club 2018

It was a full house each Tuesday for 8 weeks this Spring, as our 5th annual after school club met to explore computer programming and robotics.  The CIS students used Scratch to animate Mother's Day projects.  We built Lego WeDo robots using the same kits provided by the COCISD Education Foundation our first year "in business" so thanks for funding that grant proposal waay baaack! The last 2 weeks were spent programming Dot and Dash robots  using an iPad app named Blockly.

Just like what's happening at LJH, I feel like the past years of this club, combined with work in class and 4 years of Digic@mp (summer tech camp) are building capacity so that the students are more easily understanding the processes and more willing to do the problem solving to make things work.
It's not the programming that's hard, it's the problem solving after you realize that it "doesn't work."
YET!!!
Here are some examples- I encourage you to check out the animated Mother's Day cards that were created using Scratch!  Some students from club helped students during an enrichment time to create these!


Scratch Animated Mother's Day Cards: Click here.





WeDo Lego Robots- build, plug in to the computer, program, and run!

 

Here are some snippets of programs built using Blockly to make Dot and Dash communicate with each other.

Lincoln Junior High Coding Club!

Spring 2018 LJH Coding Club!

A small but mighty group met every week on Thursdays to explore and develop coding skills using a fun programming language called Scratch!  This year's group was way more prepared than in year's past, so I really ended up having it more like an Open Lab time- students could choose the project or work on their own.  I think that the Computer Science pipeline is beginning to show results!  As in year's past, I began the group by introducing the CS First program.  

Why CS First?

1.  It provides user names and passwords for Scratch!  This is important because our students can't receive emails from outside COCISD, and creating an account in Scratch will require email verification.  Creating a Scratch account through CS First bypasses the need for email verification because it goes through the teacher's CS First account.

2.  It provides step by step lesson plans and video lessons that allow students to work at their own pace!  

3.  Because of #2, a teacher (like me a few years ago) who is clueless can still manage to lead students!  We all just listen and watch the videos and follow the online directions. 

We All Learned Together!

4.   Students can personalize their projects, allowing for voice and choice, and extensions at the end of the project allow for even more creative expression.

5.   CS First has a badging element to the projects! Students collect badges they put in their Passport upon completion of each project- or teacher discretion!

6.   The online materials provided address issues students may have, and address the teacher's desire to feel confident in providing instruction.

7.   There are many themes to choose from, ranging from Gaming to Fashion to Sports!

LJH ❤ CS First! 

We have a wonderful Tech Apps teacher at LJH named Natalie Martin, and she has been working with me to introduce coding to the students at LJH.  She has worked with me to help organize "Hour of Code" weeks each of the past 5 years.  This year she made the commitment to use a curriculum named "Creative Computing with Scratch" to help introduce programming to students. 

So....many more students are getting the opportunity to learn programming/coding skills than in years' past!  That's the pipeline starting to work!

Here are a few pics and projects: